I do think this is an important subject for us to understand. The problems in the mid east, are the result of England and France thinking they could do as they please with the mid east, and today's demand for oil and water have turned this region into an area of violent conflict. If the region were nothing but inhostible mountains, it and the people living there, would be ignored. The fight isn't so much for land, but water (Turkish area) and control of oil (Iraq area). This brings unwanted people into the Kurds territory, and this becomes a violent conflict, because the Kurds never signed an agreement that their territory belongs to Iraq and Turkey. The British and French just divided the region up as they pleased without the consent of those living in the regions. It is the same problem we see in Israel, only the Jews have enjoyed greater support from Britian and US than Kurds have.
I hope everyone understands, the world does not recognized the Kurdistan shown in the map, because the English and French didn't recognize these people with their own country. Also, the US is a late comer. It befriended the Kurds to enhance its own control of the region. It had befriended Iranians too, not because the US is such a friendly and idealistic nation, but it befriends people when it wants something they have. Such as using the CIA to get the Kurds to rebel against Sadam, and then doing nothing when Sadam slaughtered them, because its CIA operations are secret and the US doesn't want to expose its interest and actions in such areas.
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It occurs in the aftermath of of World War I, when the modern map of the Mideast was created.
Heading into WWI, the Ottoman Turks were the dominant regional power. Most Kurds lived under Ottoman rule. The Ottomans lost the war; the victorious powers (mostly Britain and France) disassembled the empire and redrew the map of the Mideast, creating several new countries from former Ottoman provinces.
This was the supposedly great Wilsonian moment, when previously subjugated people would enjoy the right of national self-determination, although this principle — especially as it affected small nations — was often trampled by the interests of bigger powers.
In the Treaty of Sevres (1920) the defeated Turkish Sultan Mehmed VI agreed to boundaries for the post-imperial Turkish nation that basically included only the territory on which ethnic Turks lived. It did not include the Kurdish region. The Treaty of Sevres provided autonomy for the Kurds, with a prospect of an independent Kurdish state.
Meanwhile, the British had control of the the three former Ottoman provinces of Mosul (mostly Kurdish), Baghdad (mostly Sunni Arab) and Basra (mostly Shia Arab). In “A Peace to End All Peace,” David Fromkin’s highly-regarded book length treatment of the post-Ottoman shenanigans, Fromkin wrote that the British were torn between those who wanted to create an independent Kurdish state out of the Mosul province, and those who wanted to make it part of the new British project that would become the nation of Iraq.
The Magic Moment
Imagining counter-history is always risky, but it seems quite possible, even likely, that if the Kurds of southeastern Turkey and the Kurds of Northern Iraq had been granted the autonomy and self-determination rights that was almost within their grasp at this magic moment, they would have combined, formed a Kurdish state that would have and been and might still be home to the great majority of the world’s Kurds.
A medium-sized nation (a lot bigger than Kuwait, which gained independence as part of this overall story) would have had oil resources (from the Iraqi portion) and water resources (from the Turkish portion). If it could have lasted, it would almost certainly be less troublesome than those two Kurdish portions are now. As best I can tell, it would likely be a pro-American enclave (certainly the Iraqi Kurds have been the most pro-American group in Iraq and perhaps in the whole Mideast) and likely have an above-average chance, at least for that region, of becoming a prosperous, stable democracy.
Eric Black Ink » Blog Archive » Kurdish history 101
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